THE AWFUL GERMAN LANGUAGE - kliebhan.dekliebhan.de/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/Mark-Twain-Awful-Germn-L… · Harris and I had been hard at work on our German during sev-eral weeks

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Anmerkung der Herausgeber:

Die Zifern am Außenrand der Seiten verweisen auf die Seitenzahl der amerikanischen Originalausgabe von A Tramp Abroad,

erschienen im Jahre 1880 in Hartford, Connecticut, bei der American Publishing Company [u.a.]

THE AWFUL GERMAN LANGUAGE

A little learning makes the whole world kin.— Proverbs xxxii, 7.

I went often to look at the collection of curiosities in Heidelberg Castle, and one day I surprised the keeper of it with my German. I spoke entirely in that language. He was greatly interested; and after I had talked a while he said my German was very rare, pos-sibly a “unique;” and wanted to add it to his museum.

If he had known what it had cost me to acquire my art, he would also have known that it would break any collector to buy it. Harris and I had been hard at work on our German during sev-eral weeks at that time, and although we had made good progress, it had been accomplished under great difficulty and annoyance, for three of our teachers had died in the mean time. A person who has not studied German can form no idea of what a perplexing language it is.

Surely there is not another language that is so slip-shod and systemless, and so slippery and elusive to the grasp. One is washed about in it, hither and hither, in the most helpless way; and when at last he thinks he has captured a rule which offers firm ground to take a rest on amid the general rage and turmoil of the ten parts of speech, he turns over the page and reads, “Let the pupil make careful note of the following exceptions.” He runs his eye

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down and finds that there are more exceptions to the rule than instances of it. So overboard he goes again, to hunt for another Ararat and find another quicksand. Such has been, and continues to be, my experience. Every time I think I have got one of these four confusing “cases” where I am master of it, a seemingly insig-nificant preposition intrudes itself into my sentence, clothed with an awful and unsuspected power, and crumbles the ground from under me. For instance, my book inquires after a certain bird—(it is always inquiring after things which are of no sort of conse-quence to anybody): “Where is the bird ?” Now the answer to this question,—according to the book,—is that the bird is waiting in the blacksmith shop on account of the rain. Of course no bird would do that, but then you must stick to the book. Very well, I begin to cipher out the German for that answer. I begin at the wrong end, necessarily, for that is the German idea. I say to myself, “Regen, (rain,) is masculine—or maybe it is feminine—or possi-bly neuter—it is too much trouble to look, now. Therefore, it is either der (the) Regen, or die (the) Regen, or das (the) Regen, ac-cording to which gender it may turn out to be when I look. In the interest of science, I will cipher it out on the hypothesis that it is masculine. Very well—then the rain is der Regen, if it is simply in the quiescent state of being mentioned, without enlargement or discussion—Nominative case; but if this rain is lying around, in a kind of a general way on the ground, it is then definitely located, it is doing something—that is, resting (which is one of the Ger-man grammar’s ideas of doing something,) and this throws the rain into the Dative case, and makes it dem Regen. However, this rain is not resting, but is doing something actively,—it is falling,—to interfere with the bird, likely—and this indicates movement, which has the effect of sliding it into the Accusative case and changing dem Regen into den Regen.” Having completed the grammatical

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horoscope of this matter, I answer up confidently and state in Ger-man that the bird is staying in the blacksmith shop “wegen (on ac-count of) den Regen.” Then the teacher lets me softly down with the remark that whenever the word “wegen” drops into a sentence, it always throws that subject into the Genitive case, regardless of consequences—and therefore this bird stayed in the blacksmith shop “wegen des Regens.”

N.B.—I was informed, later, by a higher authority, that there was an “exception” which permits one to say “wegen den Regen” in certain peculiar and complex circumstances, but that this exception is not extended to anything but rain.

There are ten parts of speech, and they are all troublesome. An average sentence, in a German newspaper, is a sublime and im-pressive curiosity; it occupies a quarter of a column; it contains all the ten parts of speech—not in regular order, but mixed; it is built mainly of compound words constructed by the writer on the spot, and not to be found in any dictionary—six or seven words com-pacted into one, without joint or seam—that is, without hyphens; it treats of fourteen or fifteen different subjects, each enclosed in a parenthesis of its own, with here and there extra parentheses, which re-enclose three or four of the minor parentheses, making pens with pens; finally, all the parentheses and re-parentheses are massed together between a couple of king-parentheses, one of which is placed in the first line of the majestic sentence and the other in the middle of the last line of it—after which comes the verb, and you find out for the first time what the man has been talking about; and after the verb—merely by way of ornament, as far as I can make out,—the writer shovels in “haben sind gewesen gehabt haben geworden sein,” or words to that effect, and the monument is finished. I suppose that this closing hurrah is in the nature of the flourish to a man’s signature—not necessary, but pretty. Ger-

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man books are easy enough to read when you hold them before the looking-glass or stand on your head,—so as to reverse the construction,—but I think that to learn to read and understand a German newspaper is a thing which must always remain an impos-sibility to a foreigner.

Yet even the German books are not entirely free from attacks of the Parenthesis distemper—though they are usually so mild as to cover only a few lines, and therefore when you at last get down to the verb it carries some meaning to your mind because you are able to remember a good deal of what has gone before.

Now here is a sentence from a popular and excellent German novel,—which a slight parenthesis in it. I will make a perfectly literal translation, and throw in the parenthesis-marks and some hyphens for the assistance of the reader,—though in the original there are no parenthesis-marks or hyphens, and the reader is left to flounder through to the remote verb the best way he can:

“But when he, upon the street, the (in-satin-and-silk-covered-now-very-unconstrained-after-the-newest-fashioned-dressed) govern-ment counselor’s wife met,” etc., etc. *

That is from “The Old Mamselle’s Secret,” by Mrs. Marlitt. And that sentence is constructed upon the most approved German model. You observe how far that verb is from the reader’s base of operations; well, in a German newspaper they put their verb away over on the next page; and I have heard that sometimes after string-ing along the exciting preliminaries and parentheses for a column or two, they get in a hurry and have to go to press without get-ting to the verb at all. Of course, then, the reader is left in a very exhausted and ignorant state.

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We have the Parenthesis disease in our literature, too; and one may see cases of it every day in our books and newspapers: but with us it is the mark and sign of an unpracticed writer or a cloudy intellect, whereas with the Germans it is doubtless the mark and sign of a practiced pen and of the presence of that sort of luminous intellectual fog which stands for clearness among these people. For surely it is not clearness,—it necessarily can’t be clearness. Even a jury would have penetration enough to discover that. A writer’s ideas must be a good deal confused, a good deal out of line and sequence, when he starts out to say that a man met a counselor’s wife in the street, and then right in the midst of this so simple undertaking halts these approaching people and makes them stand still until he jots down an inventory of the woman’s dress. That is manifestly absurd. It reminds a person of those dentists who secure your instant and breathless interest in a tooth by taking a grip on it with the forceps, and then stand there and drawl through a te-dious anecdote before they give the dreaded jerk. Parentheses in literature and dentistry are in bad taste.

The Germans have another kind of parenthesis, which they make by splitting a verb in two and putting half of it at the be-ginning of an exciting chapter and the other half at the end of it. Can any one conceive of anything more confusing than that ? These things are called “separable verbs.” The German grammar is blis-tered all over with separable verbs; and the wider the two portions of one of them are spread apart, the better the author of the crime is pleased with his performance. A favorite one is reiste ab,—which means, departed. Here is an example which I culled from a novel and reduced to English: “The trunks being now ready, he DE- af-ter kissing his mother and sisters, and once more pressing to his bosom his adored Gretchen, who, dressed in simple white muslin, with a single tuberose in the ample folds of her rich brown hair,

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* Wenn er aber auf der Strasse der in Sammt und Seide gehüllten jetz sehr ungenirt nach der neusten mode gekleideten Regierungsrathin begegnet. ”

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had tottered feebly down the stairs, still pale from the terror and excitement of the past evening, but longing to lay her poor aching head yet once again upon the breast of him whom she loved more dearly than life itself, PARTED.”

However, it is not well to dwell too much on the separable verbs. One is sure to lose his temper early; and if he sticks to the subject, and will not be warned, it will at last either soften his brain or petrify it. Personal pronouns and adjectives are a fruit-ful nuisance in this language, and should have been left out. For instance, the same sound, sie, means you, and it means she, and it means her, and it means it, and it means they, and it means them. Think of the ragged poverty of a language which has to make one word do the work of six,—and a poor little weak thing of only three letters at that. But mainly, think of the exasperation of never knowing which of these meanings the speaker is trying to convey. This explains why, whenever a person says SIE to me, I generally try to kill him, if a stranger.

Now observe the Adjective. Here was a case where simplicity would have been an advantage; therefore, for no other reason, the inventor of this language complicated it all he could. When we wish to speak of our “good friend or friends,” in our enlightened tongue, we stick to the one form and have no trouble or hard feel-ing about it; but with the German tongue it is different. When a German gets his hands on an adjective, he declines it, and keeps on declining it until the common sense is all declined out of it. It is as bad as Latin. He says, for instance:

singular Nominative—Mein guter Freund, my good friend.Genitive—Meines Guten Freundes, of my good friend. Dative—Meinem guten Freund, to my good friend. Accusative—Meinen guten Freund, my good friend.

plural

N.—Meine guten Freunde, my good friends.G.—Meiner guten Freunde, of my good friends.D.—Meinen guten Freunden, to my good friends.A.—Meine guten Freunde, my good friends. Now let the candidate for the asylum try to memorize those

variations, and see how soon he will be elected. One might better go without friends in Germany than take all this trouble about them. I have shown what a bother it is to decline a good (male) friend; well, this is only a third of the work, for there is a variety of new distortions of the adjective to be learned when the object is feminine, and still another when the object is neuter. Now there are more adjectives in this language than there are black cats in Switzerland, and they must all be as elaborately declined as the ex-amples above suggested. Difficult ?—troublesome ?—these words cannot describe it. I heard a Californian student in Heidelberg, say, in one of his calmest moods, that he would rather decline two drinks than one German adjective.

The inventor of the language seems to have taken pleasure in complicating it in every way he could think of. For instance, if one is casually referring to a house, Haus, or a horse, Pferd, or a dog, Hund, he spells these words as I have indicated; but if he is referring to them in the Dative case, he sticks on a foolish and un-necessary e and spells them Hause, Pferde, Hunde. So, as an added e often signifies the plural, as the s does with us, the new student is likely to go on for a month making twins out of a Dative dog before he discovers his mistake; and on the other hand, many a new student who could ill afford loss, has bought and paid for two dogs and only got one of them, because he ignorantly bought that dog in the Dative singular when he really supposed he was talking plural,—which left the law on the seller’s side, of course,

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by the strict rules of grammar, and therefore a suit for recovery could not lie.

In German, all the Nouns begin with a capital letter. Now that is a good idea; and a good idea, in this language, is necessarily conspicuous from its lonesomeness. I consider this capitalizing of nouns a good idea, because by reason of it you are almost always able to tell a noun the minute you see it. You fall into error occa-sionally, because you mistake the name of a person for the name of a thing, and waste a good deal of time trying to dig a meaning out of it. German names almost always do mean something, and this helps to deceive the student. I translated a passage one day, which said that “the infuriated tigress broke loose and utterly ate up the unfortunate fir-forest,” (Tannenwald.) When I was girding up my loins to doubt this, I found out that Tannenwald, in this instance, was a man’s name.

Every noun has a gender, and there is no sense or system in the distribution; so the gender of each must be learned separately and by heart. There is no other way. To do this, one has to have a memory like a memorandum-book. In German, a young lady has no sex, while a turnip has. Think what overwrought reverence that shows for the turnip, and what callous disrespect for the girl. See how it looks in print—I translate this from a conversation in one of the best of the German Sunday-school books:

“Gretchen. Wilhelm, where is the turnip ? “Wilhelm. She has gone to the kitchen. “Gretchen. Where is the accomplished and beautiful English

maiden ? “Wilhelm. It has gone to the opera.”

To continue with the German genders: a tree is male, its buds are female, its leaves are neuter; horses are sexless, dogs are male, cats are female,—Tom-cats included, of course; a person’s mouth, neck,

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bosom, elbows, fingers, nails, feet, and body are of the male sex, and his head is male or neuter according to the word selected to signify it, and not according to the sex of the individual who wears it,—for in Germany all the women either male heads or sexless ones; a person’s nose, lips, shoulders, breast, hands, and toes are of the female sex; and his hair, ears, eyes, chin, legs, knees, heart, and conscience haven’t any sex at all. The inventor of the language probably got what he knew about a conscience from hearsay.

Now, by the above dissection, the reader will see that in Ger-many a man may think he is a man, but when he comes to look into the matter closely, he is bound to have his doubts; he finds that in sober truth he is a most ridiculous mixture; and if he ends by trying to comfort himself with the thought that he can at least depend on a third of this mess as being manly and masculine, the humiliating second thought will quickly remind him that in this respect he is no better off than any woman or cow in the land.

In the German it is true that by some oversight of the inven-tor of the language, a Woman is a female; but a Wife (Weib) is not,—which is unfortunate. A Wife, here, has no sex; she is neu-ter; so, according to the grammar, a fish is he, his scales are she, but a fishwife is neither. To describe a wife as sexless may be called under-description; that is bad enough, but over-description is surely worse. A German speaks of an Englishman as the Engländer ; to change the sex, he adds inn, and that stands for Englishwoman,— Engländerinn. That seems descriptive enough, but still it is not exact enough for a German; so he precedes the word with that article which indicates that the creature to follow is feminine, and writes it down thus: “die Engländerinn,”—which means “the she-English-woman.” I consider that that person is over-described.

Well, after the student has learned the sex of a great number of nouns, he is still in a difficulty, because he finds it impossible to

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persuade his tongue to refer to things as “he” and “she,” and “him” and “her,” which it has been always accustomed to refer to it as “it.” When he even frames a German sentence in his mind, with the hims and hers in the right places, and then works up his courage to the utterance-point, it is no use— the moment he begins to speak his tongue files the track and all those labored males and females come out as “its.” And even when he is reading German to himself, he always calls those things “it,” where as he ought to read in this way:

Tale of the Fishwife and Its Sad Fate.*It is a bleak Day. Hear the Rain, how he pours, and the Hail,

how he rattles; and see the Snow, how he drifts along, and of the Mud, how deep he is ! Ah the poor Fishwife, it is stuck fast in the Mire; it has dropped its Basket of Fishes; and its Hands have been cut by the Scales as it seized some of the falling Creatures; and one Scale has even got into its Eye, and it cannot get her out. It opens its Mouth to cry for Help; but if any Sound comes out of him, alas he is drowned by the raging of the Storm. And now a Tomcat has got one of the Fishes and she will surely escape with him. No, she bites off a Fin, she holds her in her Mouth,—will she swallow her ? No, the Fishwife’s brave Mother-dog deserts his Puppies and rescues the Fin,—which he eats, himself, as his Re-ward. O, horror, the Lightning has struck the Fish-basket; he sets him on Fire; see the Flame, how she licks the doomed Utensil with her red and angry Tongue; now she attacks the helpless Fishwife’s Foot,—she burns him up, all but the big Toe, and even she is partly consumed; and still she spreads, still she waves her fiery Tongues; she attacks the Fishwife’s Leg and destroys it; she attacks its Hand

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and destroys her also; she attacks the Fishwife’s Leg and destroys her also; she attacks its Body and consumes him; she wreathes herself about its Heart and it is consumed; next about its Breast, and in a Moment she is a Cinder; now she reaches its Neck,—he goes; now its Chin,—it goes; now its Nose,—she goes. In another Moment, except Help come, the Fishwife will be no more. Time presses—is there none to succor and save ? Yes ! Joy, joy, with fly-ing Feet the she-Englishwoman comes ! But alas, the generous she-Female is too late: where now is the fated Fishwife ? It has ceased from its Sufferings, it has gone to a better Land; all that is left of it for its loved Ones to lament over, is this poor smoldering Ash-heap. Ah, woeful, woeful Ash-heap ! Let us take him up tenderly, reverently, upon the lowly Shovel, and bear him to his long Rest, with the Prayer that when he rises again it will be a Realm where he will have one good square responsible Sex, and have it all to himself, instead of having a mangy lot of assorted Sexes scattered all over him in Spots.

—There, now, the reader can see for himself that this pronoun

business is a very awkward thing for the unaccustomed tongue. I suppose that in all languages the similarities of look and sound between words which have no similarity in meaning are a fruitful source of perplexity to the foreigner. It is so in our tongue, and it is notably the case in the German. Now there is that trouble-some word vermählt: to me it has so close a resemblance,—either real or fancied,—to three or four other words, that I never know whether it means despised, painted, suspected, or married; until I look in the dictionary, and then I find it means the latter. There are lots of such words and they are a great torment. To increase the difficulty there are words which seem to resemble each other, and yet do not; but they make just as much trouble as if they did.

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* I capitalize the nouns, in the German ( and ancient English ) fashion.

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For instance, there is the word vermiethen (to let, to lease, to hire); and the word verheirathen (another way of saying to marry). I heard of an Englishman who knocked at a man’s door in Heidelberg and proposed, in the best German he could command, to “verheirathen” that house. Then there are some words which mean one thing when you emphasize the first syllable, but mean something very different if you throw the emphasis on the last syllable. For instance, there is a word which means a runaway, or the act of glancing through a book, according to the placing of the emphasis; and another word which signifies to associate with a man, or to avoid him, according to where you put the emphasis,—and you can generally depend on putting it in the wrong place and getting into trouble.

There are some exceedingly useful words in this language. Schlag, for example; and Zug. There are three-quarters of a col-umn of Schlags in the dictonary, and a column and a half of Zugs. The word Schlag means Blow, Stroke, Dash, Hit, Shock, Clap, Slap, Time, Bar, Coin, Stamp, Kind, Sort, Manner, Way, Apoplexy, Wood-cutting, Enclosure, Field, Forest-clearing. This is its simple and exact meaning,—that is to say, its restricted, its fettered meaning; but there are ways by which you can set it free, so that it can soar away, as on the wings of the morning, and never be at rest. You can hang any word you please to its tail, and make it mean anything you want to. You can begin with Schlag-ader, which means artery, and you can hang on the whole dictionary, word by word, clear through the alphabet to Schlag-wasser, which means bilge-water—and including Schlag-mutter, which means mother-in-law.

Just the same with Zug. Strictly speaking, Zug means Pull, Tug, Draught, Procession, March, Progress, Flight, Direction, Expe-dition, Train, Caravan, Passage, Stroke, Touch, Line, Flourish, Trait of Character, Feature, Lineament, Chess-move, Organ-stop, Team, Whiff, Bias, Drawer, Propensity, Inhalation, Disposition: but that

thing which it does not mean,—when all its legitimate pennants have been hung on, has not been discovered yet.

One cannot overestimate the usefulness of Schlag and Zug. Armed just with these two, and the word Also, what cannot the for-eigner on German soil accomplish ? The German word Also is the equivalent of the English phrase “You know,” and does not mean anything at all—in talk, though it sometimes does in print. Every time a German opens his mouth an Also falls out; and every time he shuts it he bites one in two that was trying to get out.

Now, the foreigner, equipped with these three noble words, is master of the situation. Let him talk right along, fearlessly; let him pour his indifferent German forth, and when he lacks for a word, let him heave a Schlag into the vacuum; all the chances are that it fits it like a plug, but if it doesn’t let him promptly heave a Zug after it; the two together can hardly fail to bung the hole; but if, by a miracle, they should fail, let him simply say Also ! and this will give him a moment’s chance to think of the needful word. In Germany, when you load your conversational gun it is always best to throw in a Schlag or two and a Zug or two, because it doesn’t make any difference how much the rest of the charge may scatter, you are bound to bag something with them. Then you blandly say Also, and load up again. Nothing gives such an air of grace and elegance and unconstraint to a German or an English conversation as to scatter it full of “Also’s” or “You knows.”

In my note-book I find this entry: July 1.—In the hospital yesterday, a word of thirteen syllables was

successfully removed from a patient—a North German from near Ham-burg; but as most unfortunately the surgeons had opened him in the wrong place, under the impression that he contained a panorama, he died. The sad event has cast a gloom over the whole community.That paragraph furnishes a text for a few remarks about one of

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the most curious and notable features of my subject—the length of German words. Some German words are so long that they have a perspective. Observe these examples:

Freundschaftsbezeigungen. Dilettantenaufdringlichkeiten. Stadtverordnetenversammlungen.

These things are not words, they are alphabetical processions. And they are not rare; one can open a German newspaper at any time and see them marching majestically across the page,—and if he has any imagination he can see the banners and hear the music, too. They impart a martial thrill to the meekest subject. I take a great interest in these curiosities. Whenever I come across a good one, I stuff it and put it in my museum. In this way I have made quite a valuable collection. When I get duplicates, I exchange with other collectors, and thus increase the variety of my stock. Here rare some specimens which I lately bought at an auction sale of the effects of a bankrupt bric - a - brac hunter:

Generalstaatsverordnetenversammlungen. Alterthumswissenschaften.

Kinderbewahrungsanstalten.

Unabhaengigkeitserklaerungen.

Wiedererstellungbestrebungen.

Waffenstillstandsunterhandlungen.

Of course when one of these grand mountain ranges goes stretch-ing across the printed page, it adorns and ennobles that literary landscape,—but at the same time it is a great distress to the new student, for it blocks up his way; he cannot crawl under it, or climb over it, or tunnel through it. So he resorts to the diction-ary for help, but there is no help there. The dictionary must draw the line somewhere,—so it leaves this sort of words out. And it is

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right, because these long things are hardly legitimate words, but are rather combinations of words, and the inventor of them ought to have been killed. They are compound words with the hyphens left out. The various words used in building them are in the dictionary, but in a very scattered condition; so you can hunt the materials out, one by one, and get at the meaning at last, but it is a tedious

and harassing business. I have tried this process upon some of the above examples. “Freundshaftsbezeigungen” seems to be “Friend-ship demonstrations,” which is only a foolish and clumsy way of say-ing “demonstrations of friendship.” “Un ab haengig keits er klae rungen” seems to be “In de pen dence de clar ations,” which is no improvement upon “Declarations of Independence,” so far as I can see. “Ge ne ral-staats ver ord ne ten ver samm lun gen ” seems to be “General states repre-sen ta tives mee tings,” as nearly as I can get at it,—a mere rhythmical, gushy euphuism for “meetings of the legislature,” I judge. We used to have a good deal of this sort of crime in our literature, but it has gone out now. We used to speak of a things as a “never-to-be-forgotten” circumstance, instead of cramping it into the simple

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a complete word.

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and sufficient word “memorable” and then going calmly about our business as if nothing had happened. In those days we were not content to embalm the thing and bury it decently, we wanted to build a monument over it.

But in our newspapers the compounding-disease lingers a little to the present day, but with the hyphens left out, in the German fashion. This is the shape it takes: instead of saying “Mr. Simmons, clerk of the county and district courts, was in town yesterday,” the new form put it thus: “Clerk of the County and District Court Sim-mons was in town yesterday.” This saves neither time nor ink, and has an awkward sound besides. One often sees a remark like this in our papers: “Mrs. Assistant District Attorney Johnson returned to her city residence yesterday for the season.” That is a case of re-ally unjustifiable compounding; because it not only saves no time or trouble, but confers a title on Mrs. Johnson which she has no right to. But these little instances are trifles indeed, contrasted with the ponderous and dismal German system of piling jumbled com-pounds together. I wish to submit the following local item, from a Mannheim journal, by way of illustration:

“In the day before yester day shortly after eleven o’clock Night, the in this town stand ing tavern called “The Wagoner” was downburnt. When the fire to the on the down burn ing house resting Stork’s Nest reached, flew the parent Storks away. But when the by the raging, fire sur round ed Nest itself caught Fire, straightway plunged the quick returning Mother-Stork into the Flames and died, her Wings over her young ones outspread.”

Even the cumbersome German construction is not able to take the pathos out of that picture,—indeed it somehow seems to strengthen it. This item is dated away back yonder months ago. I could have used it sooner, but I was waiting to hear from the Father-stork. I am still waiting.

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“Also !” If I had not shown that the German is a difficult lan-guage, I have at least intended to do so. I have heard of an Ameri-can student who was asked how he was getting along with his Ger-man, and who answered promptly: “I am not getting along at all. I have worked at it hard for three level months, and all I have got to show for it is one solitary German phrase,—‘Zwei glas,’ ” (two glasses of beer.) He paused for a moment, reflectively, then added with feeling, “But I’ve got that solid !”

And if I have not also shown that German is a harassing and infuriating study, my execution has been at fault, and not my in-tent. I heard lately of a worn and sorely tried American student who used to fly to a certain German word for relief when he could bear up under his aggravations no longer,—the only word whose sound was sweet and precious to his ear and healing to his lacer-ated spirit. This was the word Damit. It was only the sound that

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helped him, not the meaning*; and so, at last, when he learned that the emphasis was not on the first syllable, his only stay and support was gone, and he faded away and died.

I think that a description of any loud, stirring, tumultuous episode must be tamer in German than in English. Our descriptive words of this character have such a deep, strong, resonant sound, while their German equivalents do seem so thin and mild and energyless. Boom, burst, crash, roar, storm, bellow, blow, thunder, explosion; howl, cry, shout, yell, groan; battle, hell. These are mag-nificent words; they have a force and magnitude of sound befitting the things which they describe. But their German equivalents would be ever so nice to sing the children to sleep with, or else my awe-inspiring ears were made for display and not for superior useful-ness in analyzing sounds. Would any man want to die in a battle which was called by so tame a term as a Schlacht ? Or would not a comsumptive feel too much bundled up, who was about to go out, in a shirt collar and a seal ring, into a storm which the bird-song word Gewitter was employed to describe ? And observe the strongest of the several German equivalents for explosion,—Ausbruch. Our word Toothbrush is more powerful than that. It seems to me that the Germans could do worse than import it into their language to describe particularly tremendous explosions with. The German word for hell,—Hölle,—sounds more like helly than anything else; therefore, how necessary chipper, frivolous and unimpressive it is. If a man were told in German to go there, could he really rise to the dignity of feeling insulted ?

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Having now pointed out, in detail, the several vices of this language, I now come to the brief and pleasant task of pointing out its virtues. The capitalizing of the noun I have already mentioned. But far before this virtue stands another,—that of spelling a word according to the sound of it. After one short lesson in the alphabet, the student can tell how any German word is pronounced, without having to ask; whereas in our language if a student should inquire of us “What does B, O, W, spell ?” we should be obliged to reply,

“Nobody can tell what it spells, when you set if off by itself,—you can only tell by referring to the context and finding out what it signifies,—whether it is a thing to shoot arrows with, or a nod of one’s head, or the forward end of a boat.”

There are some German words which are singularly and pow-erfully effective. For instance, those which describe lowly, peaceful and affectionate home life; those which deal with love, in any and all forms, from mere kindly feeling and honest good will toward the passing stranger, clear up to courtship; those which deal with out door Nature, in its softest and loveliest aspects,—with mead-ows, and forests, and birds and flowers, the fragrance and sunshine of summer, and the moonlight of peaceful winter nights; in a word, those which deal with any and all forms of rest, respose, and peace; those also which deal with the creatures and marvels of fairyland; and lastly and chiefly, in those words which express pathos, is the language surpassingly rich and affective. There are German songs which can make a stranger to the language cry. That shows that the sound of the words is correct,— it interprets the meanings with truth and with exactness; and so the ear is informed, and through the ear, the heart.

The Germans do not seem to be afraid to repeat a word when it is the right one. They repeat it several times, if they choose. That is wise. But in English when we have used a word a couple of times

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* It merely means, in its general sense, “herewith.”

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in a paragraph, we imagine we are growing tautological, and so we are weak enough to exchange it for some other word which only approximates exactness, to escape what we wrongly fancy is a greater blemish. Repetition may be bad, but surely inexactness is worse.

—

There are people in the world who will take a great deal of trouble to point out the faults in a religion or a language, and then go blandly about their business without suggesting any remedy. I am not that kind of person. I have shown that the German language needs reforming. Very well, I am ready to reform it. At least I am ready to make the proper suggestions. Such a course as this might be immodest in another; but I have devoted upward of nine full weeks, first and last, to a careful and critical study of this tongue, and thus have acquired a confidence in my ability to reform it which no mere superficial culture could have conferred upon me.

In the first place, I would leave out the Dative Case. It confuses the plurals; and besides, nobody ever knows when he is in the Da-tive Case, except he discover it by accident,—and then he does not know when or where it was that he got into it, or how long he has been in it, or how he is going to get out of it again. The Dative Case is but an ornamental folly,—it is better to discard it.

In the next place, I would move the Verb further up to the front. You may load up with ever so good a Verb, but I notice that you never really bring down a subject with it at the present German range,—you only cripple it. So I insist that this important part of speech should be brought forward to a position where it may be easily seen with the naked eye.

Thirdly, I would import some strong words from the English tongue,—to swear with, and also to use in describing all sorts of vigorous things in a vigorous way.*

Fourthly, I would reorganize the sexes, and distribute them accordingly to the will of the creator. This as a tribute of respect, if nothing else.

Fifthly, I would do away with those great long compounded words; or require the speaker to deliver them in sections, with in-termissions for refreshments. To wholly do away with them would be best, for ideas are more easily received and digested when they come one at a time than when they come in bulk. Intellectual food is like any other; it is pleasanter and more beneficial to take it with a spoon than with a shovel.

Sixthly, I would require a speaker to stop when he is done, and not hang a string of those useless “haben sind gewesen ge-habt haben geworden seins” to the end of his oration. This sort of gew-gaws undignify a speech, instead of adding a grace. They are therefore an offense, and should be discarded.

Seventhly, I would discard the Parenthesis. Also the re-Pa-renthesis, the re-re-parenthesis, and the re-re-re-re-re-re-parentheses, and likewise the final wide-reaching all-enclosing King-parenthesis. I would require every individual, be he high or low, to unfold a plain straightforward tale, or else coil it and sit on it and hold his

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* “Verdammt, ” and its variations and enlargements, are words which have plenty of meaning, but the sounds are so mild and ineffectual that German ladies can use them without sin. German ladies who could not be induced to commit a sin by any persuasion or compulsion, promptly rip out one of these harmless little words when they tear their dresses or don ’t like the soup. It sounds about as wicked as our “My gracious.” German ladies are constantly saying, “Ach ! Gott !” “Mein Gott !” “Gott in Himmel !” “Herr Gott” “Der Herr Jesus !” etc. They think our ladies have the same custom, perhaps, for I once heard a gentle and lovely old German lady say to a sweet young American girl, “The two languages are so alike—how pleasant that is; we say ‘Ach ! Gott !’ you say ‘Goddamn.’”

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peace. Infractions of this law should be punishable with death.And eighthly and lastly, I would retain Zug and Schlag, with

their pendants, and discard the rest of the vocabulary. This would simplify the language.

I have now named what I regard as the most necessary and important changes. These are perhaps all I could be expected to name for nothing; but there are other suggestions which I can and will make in case my proposed application shall result in my being formally employed by the government in the work of reforming the language.

My philological studies have satisfied me that a gifted person ought to learn English (barring spelling and pronouncing) in 30 hours, French in 30 days, and German in 30 years. It seems mani-fest, then, that the latter tongue ought to be trimmed down and repaired. If it is to remain as it is, it ought to be gently and rever-ently set aside among the dead languages, for only the dead have time to learn it.

A Fourth of July Oration in the German Tongue,

delivered at a Banquet of the Anglo-American Club of

students by the Author of this book.

Gentlemen: Since I arrived, a month ago, in this old wonderland, this vast garden of Germany, my English tongue has so often proved a useless piece of baggage to me, and so troublesome to carry around, in a country where they haven’t the checking system for luggage, that I finally set to work, last week, and learned the Ger-man language. Also ! Es freut mich dass dies so ist, denn es muss, in ein haupts:achlich degree, höf lich sein, dass man auf ein occa-sion like this, sein Rede in die Sprache des Landes worin he boards, aussprechen soll. Dafür habe ich, aus reinische Verlegenheit,—no, Vergangenheit,—no, I mean Höflichkeit,—aus reinische Höflichkeit

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habe ich resolved to tackle this business in the German language, um Gottes willen ! Also ! Sie müssen so freundlich sein, und verzeih mich die interlarding von ein oder zwei Englischer Worte, hie und da, denn ich finde dass die deutche is not a very copious language, and so when you’ve really got anything to say, you’ve got to draw on a language that can stand the strain.

Wenn aber man kann nicht meinem Rede verstehen, so werde ich ihm später dasselbe übersetz, wenn er solche Dienst verlangen wollen haben werden sollen sein hätte. (I don’t know what wollen haben werden sollen sein hätte means, but I notice they always put it at the end of a German sentence—merely for general literary gorgeousness, I suppose.)

This is a great and justly honored day,—a day which is worthy of the veneration in which it is held by the true patriots of all climes and nationalities,—a day which offers a fruitful theme for thought and speech; und meinem Freunde,—no, meinen Freunden,—meines Freundes,—well, take your choice, they’re all the same price; I don’t know which one is right,—also ! ich habe gehabt haben worden gewesen sein, as Goethe says in his Paradise Lost,—ich,—ich,—that is to say,—ich,—but let us change cars.

Also ! Die Anblick so viele Grossbrittanischer und Ameri-kanischer hier zusammengetroffen in Bruderliche concord, ist zwar a welcome and inspiriting spectacle. And what has moved you to it ? Can the terse German tongue rise to the expression of this im-pulse ? Is it Freund schafts be zei gungen stadt ver ord ne ten ver samm lun-gen fa mi li en ei gen thüm lich kei ten ? Nein, o nein ! This is a crisp and noble word, but it fails to pierce the marrow of the impulse which has gathered this friendly meeting and produced diese Anblick,—eine Anblick welche ist gut zu sehen,—gut für die Augen in a foreign land and a far country,—eine Anblick solche als in die gewönliche Heidelberger phrase nennt man ein “schönes Aussicht !”

619

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Ja, freilich natürlich wahrscheinlich ebensowohl ! Also ! Die Aussicht auf dem Königsstuhl mehr grösserer ist, aber geistlische sprechend nicht so schön, lob’ Gott ! Because sie sind hier zusammengetroffen, in Bruderlichem concord, ein grossen Tag zu feiern, whose high benefits were not for one land and one locality only, but have con-ferred a measure of good upon all lands that know liberty to day, and love it. Hundert Jahre vorüber, waren die Engländer und die Amerikaner Feinde; aber heute sind sie herzlichen Freunde, Gott sei Dank ! May this good fellowship endure; may these banners here blended in amity, so remain; may they never any more wave over opposing hosts, or be stained with blood which was kindred, is kindred, and always will be kindred, until a line drawn upon a map shall be able to say, “This bars the ancestral blood from flow-ing in the veins of the descendant !”

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[Mark Twain] probierte sein Deutsch im Concordia aus, einem Club

für Schriftsteller und Journalisten […] Das Ganze war eine Gaudi

in einer Bierkneipe, eine laute Angelegenheit mit ungezügeltem

Kameradschaftsgeist, Trinkliedern, und Knallen von Bierkrügen.

Mark Twains Rede auf Deutsch hielt sich sowohl in der Form und

dem Inhalt an den informellen Anlass.

Anmerkung des Herausgebers in The Oxford Mark Twain.

New York [u.a.]: Oxford Univ. Press, 1996

DIE SCHRECKEN DER DEUTSCHEN SpRACHE

Concordia Festkneipe, Vienna, October 31, 1897

Es hat mich tief gerührt, meine Herren, hier so gastfreundlich empfangen zu werden, von Kollegen aus meinem eigenen Berufe, in diesem von meiner eigenen Heimath so weit entferntem Lande. Mein Herz ist voller Dankbarkeit, ab meine Armuth an deutschen Worten zwingt mich zu groszer Sparzamkeit des Ausdruckes. Ent-schuldigen Sie, meine Herren, dasz ich verlese, was ich Ihnen sagen will. (Er las aber nicht, Anm. d. Ref.) Die deutsche Sprache spreche ich nicht gut, doch haben mehrere Sächverständige mich versichert, dasz ich sie schreibe wie ein Engel. Mag sein—ich weisz nicht. Habe bis jetzt keine Bekanntschaften mit Engeln gehabt. Das kommt später—wenn’s dem lieben Gott gefällt—es hat keine Eile.

Seit lange, meine Herren, habe ich die leidenschaftliche Sehn-sucht gehegt, eine Rede auf Deutsch zu halten, aber man hat mir’s nie erlauben wollen. Leute, die kein Gefühl für die Kunst hatten, legten mir immer Hindernisse in den Weg und vereitelten meinen Wunsch—zuweilen durch Vorwände, häufig durch Gewalt. Immer sagten diese Leute zu mir: “Schweigen Sie, Ew. Hochwohlgeboren ! Ruhe, um Gotteswillen ! Suche andere Art und Weise, Dich lästig zu machen.”

Im jetzigen Fall, wie gewöhnlich, ist es mir schwierig geworden, mir die Erlaubnisz zu verschaffen. Das Comite bedauerte sehr, aber es konnte mir die Erlaubnisz nich bewilligen wegen eines Gesetzes, das von der Concordia verlangt, sie soll die deutsche Sprache schüt zen Du liebe Zeit ! Wieso hätte man mir das sagen kön nen—mögen—dürfen—sollen ? Ich bin ja der treueste Freund der deutschen Spra-che—und nicht nur jetzt, sondern von lange her—ja vor swanzig

Originalillustration aus A Tramp Abroad, 1888.

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Jahren schon. Und nie habe ich das Verlangen gehabt, der edlen Sprache zu schaden, im Gegentheil, nur gewünscht, sie zu verbes-sern; ich wollte sie blos reformiren. Es ist der Traum meines Lebens gewesen. Ich habe schon Besuche bei den verschiedenen deutschen Regierungen abgestattet und um Kontrakte gebeten. Ich bin jetzt nach Oesterreich in demselben Auftrag gekommen. Ich wurde nur einige Aenderungen anstreben. Ich wurde blos die Sprachtmetho-de—die uppige, weitschweifige Konstruktion—zusam menrucken; die ewige Parenthese unterdrücken, abschaffen, vernich ten; die Ein-führung von mehr als dreizehn Subjekten in einen Satz verbieten; das Zeitwort so weit nach vorne rücken, bis man es ohne Fernrohr entdecken kann. Mit einem Wort, meine Herren, ich möchte Ihre geliebte Sprache vereinfachen, auf dasz, meine Herren, wenn Sie sie zum Gebet brauchen, man sie dort oben versteht.

Ich flehe Sie an, von mir sich berathen zu lassen, führen Sie diese erwähnten Reformen aus. Dann werden Sie eine prachtvolle Sprache besitzen und nachher, wenn Sie Etwas sagen wollen, werden Sie wenigstens selber verstehen, was Sie gesagt haben. Aber öfters heutzu tage, wenn Sie einen meilenlangen Satz von sich gegeben und Sie etwas angelehnt haben, um auszuruhen, dann müssen Sie eine rührende Neugierde empfinden, selbst herauszubringen, was Sie eigentlich gesprochen haben. Vor mehreren Tagen hat der Kor-respondent einer hiesigen Zeitung einen Satz zustande gebracht welcher hundertundzwölf Worte enthielt und darin waren sieben Parenthese eingeschachtelt und es wurde Das Subjekt siebenmal gewechselt. Denken Sie nur, meine Herren, im Laufe der Reise eines einzigen Satzes musz das arme, verfolgte, ermüdete Subjekt siebenmal umsteigen.

Nun, wenn wir die erwähnten Reformen ausführen, wird’s nicht mehre so arg sein. Doch noch eins. Ich möchte gern das trennbare Zeitwort auch ein Bischen reformiren. Ich mochte Niemand thun

lassen, was Schiller gethan: Der hat die ganze Geschichte des drei-zigjährigen Krieges zwischen die zwei Glieder eines trennbaren Zeitwortes eingezwängt. Das hat sogar Deutschland selbst empört; und man hat Schiller die Erlaubnisz verweigert, die Geschichte des hun dert jährigen Krieges zu verfassen—Gott sei’s gedankt. Nach-dem alle diese Reformen festgestellt sein werden, wird die deutsche Sprache die edelste und die schönste auf der Welt sein.

Da Ihnen jetzt, meine Herren, der Charackter meiner Missi-on bekannt ist, bitte ich Sie, so freundlich zu sein und mir Ihre werthvolle Hilfe zu schenken. Herr Pötzl hat das Publikum glau-ben machen wollen, dasz ich nach Wien gekommen bin, um die Brüken zu verstop fen und den Verkehr zu hindern, während ich Beobachtungen samm le und aufzeichne. Lassen Sie sich aber nicht von ihm anführen. Meine häufige Anwesenheit auf den Brücken hat einen ganz unschul digen Grund. Dort giebt’s den nöthigen Raum. Dort kann man einen edlen, langen, deutschen Satz ausdehnen, die Brückengeländer ent lang, und seinen ganzen Inhalt mit einem Blick übersehen. Auf das eine Ende des Geländers klebe ich das erste Glied eines trennbaren Zeitwortes und das Schluszglied klebe ich an’s andere Ende—dann breite ich den Leib des Satzes dazwischen aus. Gewöhnlich sind für meinen Zweck die Brücken der Stadt lang genug: wehn ich aber Pötzl’s Schriften studiren will, fahre ich hin-aus und benutze die herrliche unendliche Reichsbrücke. Aber das ist eine Verleumdung. Pötzl schreibt das schönste Deutsch. Vielleicht nicht so biegsam wie das meinige, aber in manchen Kleinigkeiten viel besser. Entschuldigen Sie diese Schmeicheleien. Die sind wohl verdient. Nun bringe ich meine Rede um—nein—ich wollte sa-gen, ich bringe sie zum Schlusz. Ich bin ein Fremder—aber hier, unter Ihnen, habe ich es ganz vergessen. Und so wieder, und noch wieder—biete ich Ihnen meinen herzlich sten Dank !

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THE HORRORS OF THE GERMAN LANGUAGE

Mark Twain’s Literal Translation of the Concordia Speech

It has me deeply touched, my gentlemen, here so hospitably re ceived to be. From colleagues out of my own profession, in this from my own home so far distant land. My heart is full of gratitude, but my poverty of German words forces me to greater economy of ex-pression. Excuse you, my gentleman, that I read off, what I you say will. [But he didn’t read.]

The German language speak I not good, but have numer-ous connoisseurs me assured that I her write Iike an angel. May-be—maybe—I know not. Have till now no acquaintance with the angels had. That comes later—when it the dear God please—it has no hurry.

Since long, my gentlemen, have I the passionate longing nursed a speech on German to hold, but one has me not permitted. Men, who no feeling for the art had, laid me ever hindrance in the way and made naught my desire—sometimes by excuses, often by force. Always said these men to me: “Keep you still, your High-ness ! Silence ! For God’s sake seek another way and means yourself obnoxious to make.”

In the present case, as usual it is me difficult become, for me the permission to obtain. The committee sorrowed deeply, but could me the permission not grant on account of a law which from the Concor dia demands she shall the German language protect. Du liebe Zeit ! How so had one to me this say could—might—dared—should ? I am indeed the truest friend of the German language—and not only now, but from long since—yes, before twenty years already.

And never have I the desire had the noble language to hurt; to the contrary, only wished she to improve—I would her only reform. It is the dream of my life been. I have already visits by the various German governments paid and for contracts prayed. I am now to Austria in the same task come. I would only some changes effect. I would only the language method—the luxurious, elaborate con-struction compress, the eternal parenthesis suppress, do away with, annihilate; the introduction of more than thirteen subjects in one sentence forbid; the verb so far to the front pull that one it without a telescope discover can. With one word, my gentlemen, I would your beloved language simplify so that, my gentlemen, when you her for prayer need, One her yonder-up un derstands.

I beseech you, from me yourself counsel to let, execute these mentioned reforms. Then will you an elegant language possess, and afterward, when you some thing say will, will you at least your-self understand what you said had. But often nowadays, when you a mile-long sentence from you given and you yourself somewhat have rested, then must you have a touching inquisitiveness have yourself to determine what you actually spoken have. Before several days has the correspondent of a local paper a sentence constructed which hundred and twelve words contain, and therein were sev-en parentheses smug gled in, and the subject seven times changed. Think you only, my gentlemen, in the course of the voyage of a single sentence must the poor, persecuted, fatigued subject seven times change position !

Now, when we the mentioned reforms execute, will it no lon-ger so bad be. Doch noch eins. I might gladly the separable verb also a little bit reform. I might none do let what Schiller did: he has the whole history of the Thirty Years’ War between the two members of a separable verb in-pushed. That has even Germany itself aroused, and one has Schiller the permission refused the His-

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tory of the Hundred Years’ War to compose—God be it thanked ! After all these reforms established be will, will the German lan-guage the noblest and the prettiest on the world be.

Since to you now, my gentlemen, the character of my mission known is, beseech I you so friendly to be and to me your valuable help grant. Mr. Pötzl has the public believed make would that I to Vienna come am in order the bridges to clog up and the traffic to hinder, while I observations gather and note. Allow you yourselves but not from him deceived. My frequent presence on the bridges has an entirely inno cent ground. Yonder gives it the necessary space, yonder can one a noble long German sentence elaborate, the bridge-railing along, and his whole contents with one glance overlook. On the one end of the railing pasted I the first member of a separable verb and the final member cleave I to the other end—then spread the body of the sentence between it out ! Usually are for my purposes the bridges of the city long enough; when I but Pötzl’s writings study will I ride out and use the glorious endless imperial bridge. But this is a calumny; Pötzl writes the prettiest German. Perhaps not so pliable as the mine, but in many details much better. Excuse you these flatteries. These are weIl deserved.

Now I my speech execute—no, I would say I bring her to the close. I am a foreigner—but here, under you, have I it entirely forgotten. And so again and yet again proffer I you my heartiest thanks.

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Documents

THE AWFUL GERMAN LANGUAGE - kliebhan.dekliebhan.de/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/Mark-Twain-Awful-Germn-L… · Harris and I had been hard at work on our German during sev-eral weeks